Bloodstone
by DarthGabithaTheHutt
Summary: When a witch performing human sacrifices casts a deadly curse, Dean finds himself in a race against time. Preseries, no pairings.
1. Chapter 1

Summary: When a witch performing human sacrifices casts a deadly curse, Dean finds himself in a race against time.

Another crazy story involving Dean and Sara. Is anyone surprised at this point? Sara Lucian is a character from several of my other Supernatural stories (which are listed in my profile for anyone who's interested). Reading those stories probably isn't strictly necessary, but might help. Sara is a friend (and nothing more) of Dean's who is also a young Hunter. She specialises in exorcisms and was trained by her mother, just as Dean was trained by John.

xxx

April 2003,

Dean had had some doubts about permanently road-tripping with Sara. Kick-ass exorcist, she may be, but she was also a chick. Turned out not to be that big a deal. She spent less time in the bathroom than Sammy did, even with her absurdly long hair.

"For God's sake, Dean," Sara said, reaching back over her own head to plait her wet hair. "Two months on the road with me and this still fascinates you?"

The girls Dean spent time with normally had long, perfectly styled hair. Practicality wasn't high on their list of priorities. Sara was different. And it was kinda hypnotising to watch her braid her hair back.

Yeah, it didn't help that he'd only had about three hours of sleep. But it had been so worth it...

Sara tied off the plait and slid a few hair pins into place. "If I ask something, are you going to be able to answer?"

"Depends. What are..." Dean yawned hugely. "What are you going to ask?"

"Do you want breakfast?"

xxx

A large fry-up and three cups of coffee later, Dean was feeling much more awake. Sara limited her normally-merciless teasing to a few choice comments about his taste in girls and unhealthy obsession with hair.

"So, any sign of a possession?" Dean asked around his last mouthful of bacon.

Sara shook her head. "Nothing. Last one was in only January, so it's not too surprising. But that was only a level three, so when one does show up..."

"It'll be nasty," Dean finished.

"I set up the tracking system in Black Earth. The Atwoods are keeping an eye on it. Weather anomalies, omens, the whole nine yards. They'll yell if anything shows up."

"Will's turning into one hell of a tracker, isn't he?"

"Much to Adrian's delight. He hasn't got to kill this many things since that invasion of gremlins."

"Good times."

"You want me to call them? Ask for a job?"

"Nah, I think we might have one already. Dad called last night-"

"Before or after you snuck off with that barmaid?"

"Uh, after."

Sara sniggered, earning herself a smack on the back of the hand.

"Anyway," Dean continued. "There's this coven in New York State. He wants us to go check it out."

"Witches? Human or demon?"

"Human, apparently. You know, herb bags and dream-catchers and henna tattoos. But they might be shifting into the darker stuff."

"Define dark."

"Dad thinks they're working their way up to a human sacrifice to earn demonic power."

"Delightful." Sara pulled out her wallet, fishing out some cash. They always split the cost of meals, Dean didn't know why but they did. "How do we deal with them?"

"If they're still human, we burn the books, destroy the altars. All we can do, really."

"What if they've already killed someone? Moved onto the demonic side of things? I mean, do we really..."

"Has to be done, Sara. It's not like the cops are qualified to deal with the Evil Eye."

Together, they stood up and exited the diner. The motel was just down the street; they could be out of there and on the way to New York in less than an hour.

"You've never dealt with witches?" Dean asked idly as they walked along.

Sara shook her head. "Mum didn't want me hunting things like that. In case I started looking at my own family and seeing targets."

"The whole Purge deal?" Dean asked, referring the time when Hunters had turned on anything even vaguely different, with exorcists and psychics at the top of the list.

"Guess so. What about you?"

"Dad hunted some of the demonic kind when I was a kid, but I was still on Sammy-watch. I know the principles, anyway. Most of the human ones are about as much threat as a puppy, but every now and again, one pops up with a real thirst for power."

"And power plus lack of control equals one hell of a mess."

"Exactly." Dean pulled the motel room key out of his pocket. "Oh, Pastor Jim checked up on this group about a year back. He might still have their names."

"Make things easier," Sara agreed. "I'll call him when we're on the road. Assuming, of course, that you'll be able to drive?"

She was smirking again, damn it, but Dean just shoved her into the room. They could argue about that on the way to New York.

xxx

It was amazing how much you could learn about witches and demons in a '67 Impala that was probably going way faster than was legal. These days Sara seemed to spend half her life riding shotgun in the beloved black car, on the phone to contacts, checking through the Lucian Diaries or even just debating the Monster of the Week with Dean. The other half was spent debating much more interesting things, of course, such as whether chocolate cupcakes were really a breakfast food and if Iron Maiden topped Led Zeppelin, although that last one had been called short before Dean was forced to abandon Sara in the middle of Colorado for blasphemy.

"Uh huh," Sara said, holding the phone to her ear with her shoulder as she scribbled down the names Pastor Jim was dictating. "Yeah, I got them all. Thanks, Jim." She flipped the phone shut.

"So how many?" Dean asked, not taking his eyes off the road.

"Ten that Pastor Jim met last year, but he suspects they've been recruiting. He was kinda surprised that we were going to check them out though. Apparently not one of them had any real power. All henna tattoos and spice racks, just like you said."

"One of the new girls must be revving things up, then. Or they summoned a demon, traded for power."

"Right ray of sunshine, aren't you?"

"Did Pastor Jim say where we could find our little hags?"

"They meet at the women's houses, take it in turns to play host. Like a bizarre book-club or something, I guess. We'll just have to look around."

"Man, I hate legwork"

"Well, tough luck, Casanova. Hunting in ninety-percent legwork and ten-percent focused violence."

"You know, you're not a very sympathetic friend."

"Oh, poor ickle Deanie," Sara deadpanned, idly patting his arm as she flicked through some notes with her other hand.

Dean sighed dramatically. "Why do I put up with you?"

"Because I am so much more respectable that you." Sara tucked the notes away. "And I bet you can't get us there by lunch."

Dean grinned and urged the car forward a little faster.

xxx

River Mill,  
New York State

River Mill was a small place, one main street, one school, lots of young families. Not exactly that kinda place you'd associate with the Dark Arts, but life was nothing if not unpredictable. At least this place had a decent motel.

"Okay," Dean said, coming out from the motel office with a room key dangling from one hand. "One room, guaranteed no cockroaches. And you owe me lunch."

Sara was leaning against the hood of the Impala, her back to him. "Dean?"

"Yeah?"

"I think lunch'll have to wait."

Dean followed her gaze to a newspaper rack. _Police baffled by 'ritualistic' killing, _and a picture of a smiling young woman.

"Shit."

He yanked open the Impala's door, grabbing his duffel from the back seat. The human sacrifice was only the start of the process to becoming a full-on, demonic hag with all the added power. The longer the witch had, the stronger she'd become. Time was now officially of the essence.

Sara kept a hold of her backpack and darted across the road to buy a copy of the paper. By the time Dean came back out of the motel room, with no luggage but a hidden and loaded Glock, she had the paper, a name and a location.

It was a start.

xxx

The area where Lucy Miles had died was still officially a crime scene, but the cops in River Mill weren't the most dedicated of the bunch. Luckily the town wasn't squeaky-clean enough to make Lucy their first ever murder victim, so at least there was none of that hype. Still, it took some careful timing and more luck than Dean was strictly comfortable with to get them both inside.

"Oh, man," Sara muttered, looking around. The building from the outside looked no different from any other house in River Mill, but the basement was a satanist's dream, straight out of a horror film.

Dean pulled out the EMF. "Room's clean. Except-" The EMF squawked as he approached the blood-stained pentagram on the floor. "Pointing west, right?"

"Standard evil pentagram," Sara agreed. "Required for human sacrifices." She crouched down for a closer look, being very careful not to actually touch the thing. "It doesn't look like there's any specific demon being bribed."

"Normally, the sacrifice would be to a demon-witch. Apparently it doesn't much matter which one," Dean said, moving away from the pentagram to scan the rest of the room.

"Mum always told me that deals with demons would come back to bite you in the ass. Why do these wicca-wannabes get away with it?"

"I don't think this kind of demon reproduces. Has to convert to survive, you know."

Sara nodded slowly. "So where do we go from here? There are no spell-books or altars to burn and nothing to help us with tracking down whoever did this."

"Trace the building?"

"Dude, the cops aren't that stupid. This place has been abandoned for six months according to the report."

"We'll just have to shake down the coven, then. See who Lucy's friends were, who she had a beef with."

"I just hope this town is another gossip-central kind of place."

"You're such a girl."

"And you still say that like it's odd," Sara replied. "Can we get out of here now? This place is giving me the wiggins."

Dean admitted defeat and put the EMF back into his pocket. The rest of the room was clean. "Your spider-sense tingling?"

"Like you need my freakish genes and upbringing to confirm that something nasty went on here." A dash of psychic DNA combined with an early exposure to the supernatural had given Sara a pretty accurate sense of the after-effects of magic. Of course, the bloody pentagram made that just a little bit unnecessary.

The two left the same way they had come in, going back upstairs and out the back door, then over the back fence. Dean had to give Sara a hand getting over the fence; it was taller than he was. River Mill had very private residents, it appeared. Good for Hunters who had to break-and-enter, but also good for whoever had lured or dragged Lucy here to be killed.

"So, reporters?" Dean said as they walked back to the Impala, referring to their pretence for speaking to the coven about the murder. "Cops are out of the question for a town this small."

"The report didn't say anything about the coven. It's not like these guys are in the Yellow Pages, you know? Going to them admits we know about them. I could try and join them?" she suggested.

"No way. We don't know which one is the killer." Dean paused, considering. "All of them are girls, aren't they?"

Sara nodded. "So you can't bluff your way in either. What other IDs do you have?"

"Uh, Animal Control, FBI, state troopers, reporters. Nothing really useful. Hey, what about paranormal research or something?"

"I'm such an idiot. The SPR, I've got a membership card."

"The what?"

"Society for Psychical Research, it's the oldest of it kind in the UK. Lucians always join, mostly to get access to their library. Some good books there. Including one or two that we had to confiscate, but they're pretty good people."

"What are they, ghost hunters?"

"They try to explain the unexplainable. They're not Hunters, but they're not amateurs either. So let's say that I'm here investigating common attitudes to the unknown as part of my work for the SPR and when I heard about the murder, I came to ask if the coven were being unfairly attacked by the ignorant masses like a modern-day witch-hunt."

Dean blinked. "You are getting way too good at bullshit."

"It's a talent. Can we do it?"

"Yeah. But we don't split up, okay?"

"Noted. So where does the head hag live?"

xxx

The 'head hag' turned out to be Amanda Roth, a polite, attractive woman with two children and a cute, if quiet, husband. Oh, and she practised witchcraft in her free time. Not that she called it witchcraft, Dean was sure. Probably 'opening the veil' or, uh, 'walking through the waterfall of power'. Something like that, anyway.

"And apparently she teaches arts and crafts to preschoolers," Sara read off the sheet, as Dean pulled the Impala up outside the right house. "Love to see those lessons."

"So, what do you think, innocent teacher by day, crazy murdering bitch by night?"

"Unlikely. The nice lady at the motel told me she runs art classes for adults four nights a week. Including, get this, the night Lucy was killed." Sara gave him a know-it-all smile as she got out of the car.

"A room full of alibis. That makes me feel better about walking in there."

"So how many weapons do you have on you exactly?"

"Two. You?"

"Just the one."

ID in hand, she led the way up to the front door.

This was the moment in the hunt when Dean always missed Sammy. His little brother had been able to win people over in a way that completely baffled Dean. He wasn't too bad, given the right person to charm, and something about Sara's English ways made people vaguely respect her, but neither of them had the flair for it that Sammy did.

Sara rang the doorbell, giving Dean another quick smile before it was answered.

She smiled at the woman. "Amanda Roth? I'm here from the SPR. I'd like to speak with you."

Amanda glanced at the ID. "The what?"

"The Society for Psychical Research, from England. I heard about Lucy Miles and I thought I should check that you and your associates weren't being unfairly... targeted. I know how easy it is for people to make the wrong assumptions."

The woman smiled. "We've never had any trouble here."

"I'm sure that's true, but people aren't normally at their most rational when 'ritualistic murders' pop up near a gang of self-declared witches."

"Lucy was one of us. We would never do something like that and these people know that."

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to... I'm just a researcher, ma'am. I'm not so good at the whole... communication with real people aspect of life."

Amanda relaxed slightly. "Well, I appreciate your concern, Miss..?"

"Sara Lucian. And this is my associate, Dean."

"He doesn't look much like a scientist."

"Oh, I'm just here for the heavy lifting, Ma'am," Dean said easily, offering her a charming smile.

"What exactly do you research, Miss Lucian?" Amanda asked, looking back at Sara.

"I specialise in alleged acts of witchcraft, actually."

"Alleged? You don't believe?"

"I believe that science doesn't begin to tell the whole story."

"Hm. If you'd be interested, we're holding a meeting tonight, eight o'clock. There are certain matters regarding Lucy that we need to deal with. Although I'm afraid your friend wouldn't be able to attend. Masculine auras are too disruptive."

"Yeah, that'd be great." Sara didn't even have to look at Dean to know he was about to throttle her. "If you're sure I wouldn't be in the way."

"Of course not. Meet here?"

"Thanks, Mrs Roth. I'll see you later."

Dean had enough self-control to wait for the door to close again and for the two of them to reach the Impala, but only just. "Are you crazy?" he hissed. "You have no idea what you're walking into."

"Dean, that lady didn't have any power. Not a spark. She wasn't in on the sacrifice."

"Okay, so she didn't kill Lucy Miles, but that doesn't mean she wasn't in on it!"

"Can you imagine anyone letting a murder designed to create power go ahead if the power wasn't going to go to them?"

"And it's just coincidence that I'm automatically barred?" He loaded the words with sarcasm, making Sara roll her eyes.

"This coven is chicks-only, we knew that when we came here. Look, this might be our only chance. I go to the meeting, I see which witch has power, we check her out later. She's not going to try something in a room full of witnesses, Dean."

"She's a witch, she doesn't need to stab you or anything!"

"All that stuff we got from your dad and Pastor Jim, it all said that it takes multiple sacrifices to build up enough power to do serious damage. Lucy was the first, so that should rule out curses and if I don't let any of them grab any of my hair or personal possessions, no creepy voodoo dolls either. The majority of these guys couldn't float a pencil, Dean, let alone do me any harm."

"Yeah, and one of them is a killer with demonic sidekicks." Dean sighed. "Fine. But I'm waiting outside, alright?"

"Wouldn't expect anything else."

xxx

So Dean spent two hours loitering outside Amanda Roth's home, having given every woman who entered appraising looks, checking the EMF on the seat beside him every now and again for any sign of otherwordly forces. There wasn't so much as a flicker, which did absolutely nothing to calm him down. By the time Sara came out, he was getting really, really twitchy.

Sara slid into the passenger seat, tossing her backpack over into the back. "Well, that was scintillating."

"Let me guess. No power?"

"No witchcraft. Phases of the moon, strength in nature, menstrual life-force power thingy. These guys are either majorly good actors or they're amateurs. They were worried about starting to work on runes for protection and prosperity."

"So you've got nothing?"

Sara shrugged. "There was one woman who didn't show. Amanda Roth said she cancelled when she learnt that there'd be an outsider present. Now, it might be nothing, but..."

"It is kinda suspicious," Dean agreed. "What was her name?"

"Cecilia Grenfell. And, get this, she wasn't here last year when Pastor Jim paid his visit and she spent a lot of time with Lucy Miles. Oh, and Lucy was both eager, some might say too eager, to spread her wings mojo-wise and do some experimenting, and she was a virgin. She'd even taken this chastity pledge thing." Sara smiled. "I love it when people gossip."

Dean nodded thoughtfully. "So Lucy was a perfect candidate for sacrifice and probably pretty easy to lure to that house under the pretence of trying out a new spell or something."

"Looks like. Anyway, I figured we could call the Atwoods, get our favourite tracker to do some digging on Cecilia."

"Sounds good." Dean started up the Impala, slid it out of the parking space. "Hey, is Will still working on that plan of his for some kinda super-computer?"

"Think so. It hasn't blossomed into anything solid, if that's what you mean. He's spending most of his time helping Adrian, the rest of it helping us."

"Hey, you're the one who keeps calling him."

"Like you don't mind not spending hours on the laptop. Plus we both suck at hacking."

"That doesn't mean-" Dean slammed on the brakes as a car cut across them at the junction, narrowing avoiding a collision. "Son of a bitch!" He gave the other driver the finger, still swearing, as the car drove off.

"That was rude," Sara muttered, rubbing her hands where she'd flung them out to brace herself against the dashboard. "You ok?"

Dean was still fuming. "If that bastard damaged my car..."

"Yeah, you're fine. Come on, you can check your baby over back at the motel."

As Dean started driving once again, neither of them noticed that the second car had stopped just down the side road, its occupant staring after the Impala with fixed intensity.

_"Centrum est obscurus. Tenebrae respiratis. Incende!" _

xxx  
Next chapter should be up by Wednesday, guys. Reviews are loved, adored and fed left-over turkey.


	2. Chapter 2

Right, as I like to start as I mean to go on, I'm ushering in the New Year with fanfiction! Thanks to all those who reviewed Part One, you really make my day. )

2xxx  
Sara exited the motel room and sat on the step, watching Dean with an amused eye. "How is it?"

"Looks okay," Dean said, not looking up from his detailed examination of the Impala. "Did you call Will?"

"Yeah. He's going to look into Cecilia Grenfell, call us back if he finds anything."

"Cool. So then tomorrow, we track her down, set her on fire?"

"This isn't Salem, Dean. How do you kill a witch, anyway?"

"Consecrated wrought iron rounds. Buckshot, same deal."

Sara nodded thoughtfully. "You got any?"

"Since when do I not have ammo? It's in the weapons' bag."

"Right, of course." She watched him silently for a few moments. "God, Dean, how obsessed are you with that car?"

He finally looked at her, smirking. "Getting jealous?"

"In your sad and lonely dreams, Dean Winchester."

Dean stuck his tongue out at her. "I'm going to go grab some food. Pizza?"

Sara nodded. "But no-"

"Pepperoni, yeah, I know."

Back in the motel room, Sara fished out some aspirin. Two hours of chanting, giggling and incense had given her one nasty headache. Nothing a little time wouldn't cure. Pizza was good for that sort of thing as well, at least, it was if you believed Dean.

But when Dean returned, with the promised pepperoni-less pizza, Sara had to admit that his cures made sense most of the time. They certainly made her feel better.

xxx

Dean opened his eyes to darkness, the room still smelling faintly of pizza, and frowned. Something had woken him. This room actually had decently thick curtains, for once, and it took a glance at the glowing numbers of the clock to tell him it was nearly six. He slid one hand underneath his pillow, ears straining for whatever he had heard before.

Then the noise came again, from Sara's bed. A faint whimper. He knew Sara had the odd nightmare, just like anyone would who regularly got to see right-life monsters, but this wasn't fear. Not fear, but... pain.

Dean turned on the bedside light on and rolled off the bed easily, leaning over Sara. "Hey," he said, then again, "Hey, Sara,", more loudly.

When she still didn't react, Dean put one hand on her shoulder and gave her a faint shake. At least, that was the plan. It was dropped the moment he felt how cold she was.

"Sara, wake up!"

Finally she reacted. "What?" she groaned, trying to turn over, away from him. "Oh, piss off, Dean."

"Sara!"

"What?" she snapped back, looking over her shoulder, and then repeated herself, "What?" in a completely different way when she saw the look on his face.

Dean cautiously touched the back of her T-shirt. The green material was stained, dark, and his fingers came away red.

"What the hell?" Sara sat up. One hand went to her back, under the t-shirt.

"Let me see," Dean said.

Under the t-shirt, Sara's back was smeared with blood. But the skin was smooth, unbroken.

"Name something that can make you bleed without cutting you," he said.

Sara met his eyes, face pale. "How about a witch?"

Dean found his jacket, found the EMF in one of the pockets and threw it at Sara. She caught it and hesitated. Then, with a deep breath, she flicked it on.

And dropped it like a hot coal when it whined loudly, the needle shooting right up to the far end of the scale and staying there.

"Well, that's not good," Sara said, hurriedly turning it off again.

"EMF freaks out, you're bleeding without a wound. Seems kinda..."

"I'm cursed. Literally, for once." She smiled grimly. "What do you think is going to happen to me?"

"Nothing. I won't let it."

xxx

Singer's Auto Salvage Yard

South Dakota

The phone going off in all manner of ungodly hours was not one of the most pleasant aspects of Bobby's life, but he had enough friends and colleagues trying to kill themselves on a daily basis that he never let the irritation stop him picking the phone up. He was one of the best demonology experts in North America and sometimes information was all that stood between being the Hunter and the hunted.

"Singer-"

"Bobby, what do you know about curses?"

Bobby blinked, surprised. "Dean Winchester? What's-"

"Curses, tell me about them."

Right, it was one of _those _conversations. "Uh, nasty, always nasty, hard to break. Best bet is to avoid them. What's going on?"

"We're trying to find a witch, one that killed for power and I think she got to Sara first."

Right, Dean and Sara were hunting together these days. Bobby was starting to feel old; he kept thinking of the two of them as kids, following their respective parents around with almost-fanatical devotion. But John was hunting solo and Amelia was dead, and nothing was quite the same.

"Sara's freezing and there's blood on her back, but there's no wound," Dean continued.

"Blood coming from nowhere?" Bobby repeated slowly.

"Yeah, what does that mean? Bobby. What does that mean?"

"Shit. Bloodstone," he said, rubbing his eyes.

"Huh?"

"Bloodstone curse. Don't really know where the name came from, but the main symptom is bleeding from the back with no reason. EMF?"

"She lit it up like a goddamn Christmas tree!"

"Yeah, that would definitely be a curse."

"So how do I get rid of it?"

"Um, you don't. Dean, this curse had never been broken that I know of."

"What'll it do to Sara?"

Bobby sighed. "It'll kill her."

"Oh, you gotta be kidding me."

"Look, I'm not happy about it either!" Bobby snapped. He liked Sara, for crying out loud. Kid was just like her mom used to be, when Bobby first met her back in the eighties. All wicked sense of humour and seemingly random bursts of violence.

"Then tell me a way to break it!"

"Dean, you listen to me. I'll ask around, but there's a maximum of eighteen hours before it kills Sara, and that's from the time it was cast. The blood starts between eight and twelve hours into that time. So when was she cursed?"

"Not sure. Last night, I guess. Any way to tell exactly how much time we got left?"

"When there are only three hours left..."

"What? Bobby, you just told me Sara's gonna _die _so this really isn't the time to be holding back on me."

"Agony. She's going to die in complete agony, hurting so badly she'll die just to make it stop. The pain starts three hours before she dies."

There was a long pause and all Bobby could hear was Dean's breathing, harsh, trying to get himself back under control. And when he spoke again, Bobby knew he hadn't been entirely successful.

"Find me a way, Bobby. Find one or make one, I don't care what you have to do."

Bobby sighed as the phone went dead, then started to dial again. "Jim? Yeah, we got a problem."

xxx

Dean dropped the phone back onto the bed, resisting the urge to fling it at a wall instead.

"So that's it then?" Sara asked, standing in the bathroom doorway. She'd gone in there to try and wash the blood off and it seemed Dean's hopes about her not hearing had been completely in vain. "At about four o'clock, I die screaming?"

"No. I'm going to stop it."

"Great. Let me know how that works out for you."

"Sara, don't, okay? Just have a little faith, would ya?"

Sara's gaze dropped to the floor and Dean sighed.

"Any luck stopping the blood?"

"No. I bandaged it, didn't know what else to do. It's really getting kinda creepy."

_Understatement of the year. _"Bobby's looking into it. You say here; I'm going to retrace our steps, try to figure out where you were cursed, okay?"

Sara nodded, eyes still fixed on the floor. There was no way she could go with him, not with a blood-covered spine. "It's kinda funny," she said when Dean took her arm, steering her back to bed.

"What?"

"Next week, it's my anniversary. Two years since my first solo exorcism. Mum never did think I'd live to see it."

"That proves me right then, doesn't it?" Dean said. "You always did have to prove your mom wrong. I'll be back soon, okay?"

"Yeah, sure," Sara said, managing one completely unconvincing smile, but Dean recognised the gesture for what it was – _it's okay, you can leave _– and left before either of them could talk themselves out of this.

He had work to do.

xxx

The area where Sara had been cursed would make the EMF react, just like Sara had. At least, that was the principle. Any sort of magic kicked up a few supernatural signals, like the mirror-room back in Iowa, or the freaky signs that exorcisms produced. If Dean could figure out where Sara had been cursed, he was one step closer to the witch and therefore to saving Sara's skin.

A quick scan of the motel parking lot showed not even a trace of EMF, so Dean moved further a field. The day before, Dean and Sara had been to exactly three places: the motel, the diner down the street and Amanda Roth's house. After a moment's thought, Dean got into the Impala and passed the EMF detector over Sara's seat. There was just the faintest flicker, but enough to confirm his suspicions. Sara might have been hit by the curse in the Impala, which meant she could have been attacked anywhere where they'd driven. And he only had just ten hours at the most to sort this whole thing out.

Dean quickly retraced the route he'd taken while trying to find Amanda Roth's home, all the while keeping one eye on the EMF for any hint of activity. There was nothing by the time he arrived once more at the right house.

The 'nice lady at the motel', as Sara had called her, had been very helpful when Dean spoke to her. _Well, dear, Mrs Roth is working on Tuesdays, leaves the house before seven-thirty, just like her husband, but you can find her at the local school. They've just started the summer term, of course, the kids don't get there till eight-thirty, not like when I was a girl... _

Which made this pretty much the perfect time to break and enter.

The area where the curse had hit Sara would give off EMF, Dean knew, but a quick phone call to Bobby confirmed his other suspicions: so would the spot where the curse was cast. While Dean had kept the EMF on while Sara was in the meeting the night before, he'd switched it off the moment she came out. Stupid! But as there wasn't a huge amount he could about that now, the best he could do was just check that Amanda Roth had nothing to do with this. She might be the only person who knew how to find the other witches and the sooner Dean could eliminate her as a suspect, the better. Until he found some definite evidence to point towards Cecilia Grenfell, Dean wasn't going to leave any avenue unexplored.

But even breaking in and scanning the whole house without finding a trace of EMF didn't make Dean feel comfortable about even seeing Amanda Roth again. Sara attending the coven's meeting had been the quickest way to get information, true, but it had also put Sara in danger a hell of lot sooner. And Dean couldn't forget that it had been Amanda's idea for Sara to attend and the one to boycott Dean's presence. Putting yourself between Dean and whoever he was protecting was a sure-fire way of getting him on your bad side. His misgivings aside, however, there was nothing to show that Amanda had anything to do with what had happened to Sara.

One witch down, another dozen to go. Furious, Dean exited the house and returned to the Impala, throwing the EMF, without even bothering to turn it off again, on the seat before starting the engine again. He wasn't any closer to figuring out how to break this thing and, to be honest, this was little more than busy work. He wasn't going to find a damn thing-

The EMF freaked out, lights flashing, beeping like hell, the whole nine yards. Dean hit the breaks, seriously thankful there weren't any other cars around.

Okay, so unless this was one weirdly mystical neighbourhood, this had to be the spot where Sara had been cursed. Hang on... That car. The one that had cut across them the night before. Dean slammed a hand down on the steering wheel. Distract, delay, attack. Classic technique, one that Dean had used himself. And what better way to do it than nearly cause a car-crash?

You know, it should really have worried Dean that not only had a witch attacked Sara, she had tracked her, planned, and most likely knew about Dean as well. As it was, he really didn't give a damn. He'd never had any problem with being known.

xxx

Dean opened the room door softly, hoping against hope that Sara might be asleep. And then his heart nearly stopped when he saw the empty bed. He surged into the room, but pulled up short when he saw Sara sitting against the wall by the bed, backed into the corner, facing the door.

He knelt by her, waiting until she opened her eyes. He knew she wasn't asleep, but it took her longer to react than usual. Not surprising; if all that blood oozing out of her back was her own, Sara had been losing blood slowly but steadily for almost three hours. Not enough to be dangerous, Dean figured, but definitely enough to make her a little out of it. "Sara? Wanna tell me what's wrong with your bed?"

"Can't breathe lying down," she said softly, voice shaking. Hell, all of her was shaking, Dean realised and he pulled the blanket off her abandoned bed and tucked it around her. "I think Will called," Sara added, fighting to keep her eyes open. "Didn't answer. Phone was too far away."

Her phone was only on the bedside table, on the other side of the bed, and Dean felt his stomach twist. "I'll call him," Dean reassured her. He started to move away, but Sara's hand loosely gripping his sleeve stopped him.

"Dean?"

"Yeah?"

"What's the time?"

"Almost nine."

He saw the shift in her face, the forcing down of emotions.

"It's gonna be okay," Dean said firmly. "'Cause nothing's going to happen to you. Will's one hell of a tracker, remember, and he's going to tell me everything I need to know and then I'll deal with this. Okay?"

There was a brief, harsh moment of clarity, where Sara looked at him and he knew she didn't really believe him, and then she nodded, trying to smile. Trying to be strong and Dean felt another spark of anger. Yes, it helped him no end if Sara managed to hold herself together while he did his best to save her life, but he hated it that it was so damn easy for her to slip into this _Yeah, it's all fine, not a damn thing can bother me _façade that really didn't comfort him right now, not when he had maybe only six hours before she died. Hell, she hadn't even been allowed to grieve for her own mother. No wonder she could somehow repress the entirely pressing issue of her own upcoming death.

"I should call Will."

"Hey, don't tell him anything. Not until it's over," Sara said.

Dean paused, incredulous. "You want me to lie to him, the closest thing you got to family?"

"_Yes._ He can't know..." She sighed. "You have to tell them it was quick, okay? That it didn't hurt. That I wasn't scared. So, yes, I want you to lie."

Dean didn't trust himself to answer, so he just grabbed Sara's phone and checked the screen. _1 missed call, Will._ Using his own cell, he called Will.

"Will, you got something for me?" Dean glanced at Sara. "Oh, she's busy flirting with a waiter. Yeah, so, Cecilia Grenfell?" He frowned, listening intently as Will spoke at top-speed. "Oh, you gotta be kidding me. You're sure? Manage to get a current address? Well, no worries, man. We'll just track her down the old-fashioned way. Yeah, thanks, Will."

"No good news, huh?" Sara said. Her eyes weren't even open anymore.

"Cecilia Grenfell moved to River Mill two months ago, before that she was living in this nowhere town in Nebraska. There was a murder, just before she left, one young woman found in the same condition as Lucy Miles. She was Kathleen Grenfell, Cecilia's sister. Which I guess explains how she could curse you without getting close to you. She was way more powerful than we thought, I mean, sacrificing a relation and all."

She grinned. "Still hate legwork?"

"Sara."

"Sorry. So, Cecilia's our witch. We knew that. How does it help us?"

"Well, I track her down and use the next six hours to make her undo it. How's that for a plan?"

"Somewhat lacking. You don't even know where she is."

"Like you said, everyone gossips. I'll just ask."

"What, 'Sorry, ma'am, but I need to kill a murderous witch who's cursed my best friend. Could you possibly point me in the right direction?'"

"Nope. Police officer, checking up on a link between Lucy Miles and Kathleen Grenfell, killed back in Nebraska under tragic circumstances."

Sara slowly drew her knees up to her chest. "Dean..."

"What?" And he did his absolute best not to snap at her. Sara seemed to realise that he wasn't in the mood to hear what she wanted to say, and Dean knew that what she did say wasn't what she'd intended.

"Hurry back, okay?"

Dean resisted the urge to sigh; Sara would hear it easily even if she did have her eyes closed. Slowly, he gathered up his phone, the EMF and his gun once more, reluctant to leave Sara alone like this. When his fingers brushed the battered black canvas of her backpack, the stupidest idea hit Dean, but he went along with it anyway. In December, he'd given Sara a toy rabbit when he'd learnt she couldn't remember having a stuffed animal as a kid. Dean had only learnt by accident that Azi, as Sara had christened the little rabbit, lived in the same backpack that housed her hunting-stroke-exorcism kit. He'd decided never to mention it, but desperate times, right? Unzipping the bag, Dean carefully reached past packages of herbs, bottle of holy water and Sara's journal to find the toy and then gently slid the rabbit into Sara's hand.

"I'm not a child, Dean," she said tiredly, but she tightened her fingers around Azi. "You should get going."

He nodded, gave her shoulder a final reassuring squeeze, and left her there, a little girl clutching a toy rabbit, with blood covering her back, smeared on the wall behind her.

Outside, Dean made himself breathe slowly, attempting to calm down. He hadn't managed it by the time his cell rang and he answered with a curt, "Yes?"

"Dean, we might have a way out of this."

"Bobby, man, you're a saint. What it is?"

"Uh, I called Jim Murphy, he knew this Canadian tracker, called Maxwell."

"The same Maxwell who knew Amelia, helped train Sara, all that?"

"Yeah. He'd been doing some research on curses for years, he figured out why this curse is called the Bloodstone Curse. It has to be channelled through a human host."

"And they're the Bloodstone?"

"Yeah. The name never made any sense before, because bloodstones are meant to cause prosperity, not death, and-"

"Bobby, I don't need the combined history of shiny rocks, okay? What do I do?"

"Kill the Bloodstone. And traditionally, the witch uses herself as the Bloodstone."

"That might just be the best news I've had all day."

"Well, before you start shooting people, the Bloodstone has a red beta on her left palm."

"That narrows it down. Thanks, Bobby."

Five and half hours to go, two and a half before the pain started for Sara. One suspect, one way to deal with the problem. That wasn't so bad.

xxx  
Next chapter should be up on Sunday. Reviews are... okay, I'm running out of other ways to say 'loved', but you guys get the idea...


	3. Chapter 3

Dean just might be in love with the motel owner. Seriously, the woman knew everything and was more than happy to talk, the perfect combination for a Hunter looking for information.

"Cecilia Grenfell?" the lady said, beaming at him from across the desk. "Oh, what a sweet girl. Lives over on Owen Road, only about fifteen minutes away from here. Must have been living there for... two months now, I suppose. And her sister is such a darling, so helpful and considerate."

"Sister?" Dean repeated. "I heard her sister was dead."

"Oh, no, sweetie, Maria's live and well. Terribly shy, hardly leaves the house, of course, but then we can't all be social butterflies, now, can we?"

After a few moments of meaningless small talk that didn't even get properly registered, Dean made his escape.

Three sisters? One dead, one evil and one... shy? That made bugger all sense, to use one of Sara's expressions. Dean's knowledge of witches had pretty much began and finished with that little red-head from _Buffy, _but he knew a few things. Firstly, sacrificing a family member, ideally a virgin, led to huge amounts of power. But, on the flip side, not all witches went for that maiden-mother-crone trio thing. Mother and daughter, sisters, whatever it was, a family connection worked just as well. Sometimes better. There was a good chance that little Maria had an involvement. If she did, Dean could deal. If she didn't, well, it wasn't any of his business.

But how on earth could you not realise what your sister was doing? Some witchcraft, the basic stuff, was pretty lacking in props, but how did you not notice human sacrifices and all the accessories needed for serious spell-casting? He'd always known was Sammy was up to, at least, up until the whole Stanford thing and even then he'd known that there was something he didn't know.

Dean still didn't quite get it by the time he reached Owen Road. But he had some holy water, a pistol, the EMF detector. He'd figure it out. The motel owner had told him the right house, or at least he hoped she had, and he had the Nebraska police ID ready to go. He didn't really look the part, but that never mattered. With the right ID, the right attitude, you could trick anyone into overlooking the pieces that didn't fit.

"Cecilia Grenfell?" he asked when the door was opened.

"Sorry, no. Cecilia's my sister, she's at work. I'm Maria."

He looked her over carefully. 'Shy' wasn't the word he'd use for Maria Grenfell. More 'terrified' or possibly 'hunted'.

"I'm here to talk you to about your sister, Kathleen," he said, showing her the ID. "May I come in?"

"Yeah, I guess so."

The layout of the house was practically identical to the layout of the house Lucy Miles had been killed in. The joys of mass-produced housing, Dean supposed, but he couldn't help but wonder if the basement was also in a similar condition. Maria led him into the front room.

"Uh, coffee?"

"No, thank you. Now, you moved to River Mill after Kathleen died?"

"We needed a change."

"You mean you and Cecilia?"

Maria nodded. Considering she was in her own home, she looked entirely ill at ease.

"And you don't work?"

"No. I was a secretary in Nebraska, but... It's hard to trust people when there's something like that in the family. Cecy works for the local law firm. Fact checking, stuff like that. She's not a lawyer or anything."

Dean nodded and decided that he'd spent enough time avoiding the main issue here. "What do you know about the group your sister attends?"

"What, the witches?" Maria laced the word with plenty of sarcasm, Dean would give her that much. "Those guys are all smoke and mirrors. Cecy just goes along for a joke. What does that have to do with Kathleen?"

"The newspaper article called Kathleen's death 'ritualistic'. And now Cecilia hangs out with a coven? Isn't that a little strange?"

"She's unpredictable."

Jeez, this was like getting water out of a stone. Dean looked around the room once more to give himself a few moments to think and then turned his attention back to Maria. For the first time, he noticed the gloves she was wearing.

"Ma'am, may I see your hands?" he asked with the most horrible sinking feeling in his stomach.

Most people would've protested at that point, but Maria was clearly used to taking orders as she meekly pulled the gloves off and held out her hands, palms down. And, when Dean gave her a look, turned them over.

There was a blood-red beta across her left palm.

"Figures," Dean said, rubbing his face. "Okay, so what the hell are you? Accomplice, apprentice, what?"

"I- I don't-"

"Look, my friend is dying because of what you and your sister did to her and I am _so _not in the mood for games," Dean snapped.

Maria flinched. Not like Dean hadn't got that reaction from people before, but...

"Damn it!" he swore, loudly because there wasn't anything around to hit. He'd known it from the moment he'd walked in; Maria wasn't an accomplice. She was a victim, just like Sara. And that meant he couldn't just shoot her full of iron and go do the same to her sister. He might be able to live with that, but Sara wouldn't be.

"I can't stop her," Maria said softly. "And neither can anyone else."

"Oh, I can stop her. That would be the easy part. Do you know anything about what she did to Sara?"

Maria shook her head. "She makes me drink this... stuff and then it all goes kinda..." she shrugged. "Weird."

"Has she done this before? Used you for spells?"

"No. But only because she didn't need to." She caught his expression. "Sisterly love really isn't an issue when she sacrifices family members, you know?"

"So you'd have no objection to me dealing with her?"

"I wouldn't recommend it. Whatever she's done to your friend, it's not the worst she can do."

"Sara dies, that's really not going to be much of an issue."

"How long have you got?"

Dean checked his watch. "Five hours or so."

Maria nodded. "Cecy won't be back for three hours at least. Maybe... maybe if I showed you all her books and things, you could figure something out?"

"You'd do that?"

"On one condition. You gotta make sure she stops, okay?"

Dean looked at her carefully and knew he didn't have to spell it out for her. A girl murders her own sister and uses the other as part of a deadly curse, maybe you'd know that the only to make her stop was to end her completely.

"Agreed," he said. "Now show me."

xxx

His misgivings about the basement turned out to be entirely founded as Maria unlocked the door and, at his insisting, let him go down first. The room was a confused muddle of books, jars of herbs, and another damn pentagram in the middle of the floor.

Dean gave the book a cursory scan with the EMF, just to make sure there was no unpleasant hexes or curses on any of them and then passed the meter to Maria with instructions to scan everything else. Then he pulled out his cell.

"Bobby, I found the witch's base of operations. What the hell am I looking for?"

"Dean? Didn't the bloodstone theory work out?"

"Not really an option," Dean said, glancing at Maria once again. "Look, you said no one really understood how the curse was cast. If we figure that out, would it help us?"

"Almost certainly."

"Great, so tell me what I'm looking for here."

Holding the phone to his ear with a shoulder, Dean followed Bobby's instructions as best he could. Some books he could put aside immediately, others he had to drawl through, reading snippets to Bobby in an attempt to find something relevant.

"Oh, that is just gross," he muttered, hastily turning the page on a medieval woodcut. Forty-five minutes in, his definition of 'wrong' had been stretched to breaking point.

"And that's the wrong book," Maria offered. "It was smaller than that one. Red cover. But I can't find it."

"Uh..." Dean looked around. "Bobby, give me a sec," he said down the phone and threw it at Maria. "Hold that."

There was no red book anywhere that Dean could see, but people rarely left their most important items out in the open like that. There was a large bookcase on one wall, though, and Dean yanked the books off in groups, checking behind them before replacing them. His instinct was to tip the entire bookshelf over, but that would cause too much trouble for Maria, probably. Besides, the damn thing was bolted to the wall.

But that was the only thing that had been nailed down and just about everything else went flying as Maria chipped in. She apparently had no regard for her sister's work or belongings.

"Either you stop her," she said, yanking another drawer out of the desk. "Or it doesn't much matter what state we leave this room in."

Well, he couldn't really fault that reasoning, and so Dean joined in the search. But there was no red book, no hidden compartments, nothing, and Dean's stress racked up another level. He'd been in this room for over an hour and had nothing to show for it, not one damn thing.

"Are you sure she keeps everything here?" he asked Maria.

"Yes."

Hang on... a witch didn't need hidden compartments to stop people finding things. "Did you scan everything? Walls, floor, everything?"

"Not the walls or the floor," Maria said, shaking her head. "Just the things, you know."

Dean snatched the EMF up once again and restarted the search, this time carefully passing the meter over every inch of floor, then the walls. It took way longer than he liked and he wished he'd thought to bring Sara's EMF meter with him, but if being slow and methodical was the only option, Dean would go with it.

It took him a grand total of thirty-five minutes to find what he was looking for, with pauses here and there to shove overturned furniture and books out of the way. One spot by the walls caused just the faintest fluctuation in the EMF's readings and that was quite enough for Dean.

"It's gotta be a glamour," he said, more to himself than to Maria. "Uh... easiest way to break a glamour... Something to cause good sight? A herb?" More Sara's line of work than his, but calling her and asking wasn't exactly an option.

"Morning Glory."

Dean looked up at Maria, surprised. "What?"

"Morning Glory. It's a plant, meant to cause clarity of vision. Would that do?"

"Worth a try." He didn't bother to ask how she knew that. With a sister like hers... "You know where we can get any?"

She was already heading up the stairs and Dean took that as a yes. True to his expectations, she was back in less than five minutes with a handful of blue flowers. Dean took them from her hand and rubbed them against the EMF-y patch of wall, grinning as a bookshelf which had been built into the wall appeared. On it was the red book.

"Yahtzee."

"That's the one she used. I'm sure of it."

"I thought you said you couldn't remember much."

"I can remember enough," Maria replied firmly.

Dean wasn't about to argue. If not for Maria, he'd been sunk and he knew it. When he'd given the book another scan, just to check for any unexpected surprises and found none, he quickly pulled it down and opened it. All in Latin, just his luck. Dean wasn't a fan of the dead language, but a rudimentary knowledge at the very least was necessary for a Hunter who wanted to survive and he could pick out enough to get by, he thought. Retrieving his phone, he called Bobby again, flicking quickly through the book.

"We got the spell book," he said the moment the phone was picked up. "And, shit, this stuff is twisted."

"Find the curse?"

"Uh... working on it. Bobby, all these spells are alike, man, all death and blood and destruction. What am I looking for exactly?"

"Look for a word like _saxum_ or _scopulus_."

Dean turned another few pages. Speed-reading Latin wasn't one of his strong points and he had to go way slower than he was happy with. "Oh, what about _saxum cruoris_?"

"Stone of blood, good boy."

"I can't spot any way of undoing it."

"Read it out to me, I'll get Maxwell to take a look."

"Right," Dean juggled book and phone for a moment, and cleared his throat. "Ok, _saxum- _Damn it," he muttered as his phone went off. "Bobby, call you back."

The caller-ID read Sara and all his irritation went straight out of the window.

"Sara?" he said, quickly answering. "Whoa, it's okay. I'm coming right back, okay."

Maria couldn't hear whatever had been said to Dean, but she could see the effect it had on him. With an expression that scared her almost as much as her sister, Dean thrust the book at her.

"Can you read Latin?" he said.

"Uh, yes," she stammered.

"Call Bobby, read the spell to him, tell him he's got less than three hours. He can reach me on Sara's cell, got that?"

He only waited for Maria to nod, shocked, before he threw the phone at her as well and hurried out of the basement, out of the house, back to the Impala. Back to Sara. The motel was a good quarter of an hour away, even with Dean's driving, and all the way he was shaking with rage and sorrow and fear.

_"Dean... please..." _

Two tiny words, the first used by Sara every day, the other much more sparingly, but not exactly the harbingers of doom, you know? But the way she had said them...

The clock on the dashboard said 12:14. Sara had less than three hours to live. And Dean couldn't do a damn thing about it. Unless Bobby came up with a miracle, she was going to die screaming in pain and agony. But if she wanted him there, it was the least he could do. He brought the Impala to a stop outside the motel room ten minutes later and was through the door in an instant.

Sara was almost exactly where he had left her, curled against the wall on the other side of the beds, and her eyes were still closed, but now there were tears running down her cheeks. The toy rabbit, Azi, lay discarded next to her and she had both hands clutching her head.

Dean had spent his whole life dealing with people in pain. Patching family and friends up after hunts, comforting a scared Sammy when he was still young enough to believe Dean could do anything, silently taking his Dad's weight every November 2nd until they went their separate ways last year. But this... This wasn't something that needed calm control, big-brother cockiness, hell, not even painkillers were going to help right now. It was just him, Sara and enough mind-splitting agony to kill her and destroy him.

He sat down on the floor by her, legs stretched out and gently pulled Sara into his lap, wrapping his arms around her. "It's okay," he lied. "It's gonna be okay."

She didn't fight him and he didn't know whether to be thankful or worried; Sara wasn't used to being cared about and unexpected contact always made her react like a Hunter: violently. But maybe she knew on some level who he was, because she stopped clutching her head and clung to his shirt instead.

"Dean..."

"I'm here. I'm here, Sara."

It was just too bad that that just wasn't enough this time.

Whatever the spell was doing to Sara, 'agony' really did cover it nicely. The pain came in waves which Dean could only measure by how hard she gripped his shirt. It wasn't long before he just couldn't take her pained whimpers any longer, and he started to talk. Dean Winchester, Master of Non-Verbal Communication, talked about anything and everything that came into his head. Maybe it helped Sara, maybe it didn't, but he could feel her heartbeat slow slightly and that was enough.

"...Could only have been sixteen, you know, and we're hunting this damn revenant and it just won't die. Been across three states, and then Sammy mentions silver and it just clicks. Sammy was just barely eleven, so he's sitting in the car while me and my dad go hunting through this woodland. I swear, I tripped over so many damn roots-"

Sara flinched in his arms and Dean automatically tightened his hold. The only even vaguely good thing about this situation was that it didn't hurt Sara any more if he held her than if he didn't. He didn't have any real problem with babbling either, but she had been pale and tight-lipped for a good half an hour and he was starting to freak out a little. Okay, a lot.

"Come on, Sara, just say something."

He was getting seriously close to adding something syrupy when she spoke.

"You... remember the Louisiana?"

Dean was so relieved to hear her, small and shaky though her voice was, that it took him a moment to realise what she was talking about. "The ghost ship? Yeah."

"Mum knew it was haunted. Meant to drive me away, make me give up."

Dean closed his eyes against the rush of hatred for Amelia. Sara had nearly died on that ship, would've died if he hadn't been there, targeted by a murderous ghost who hated psychics.

"That's why she hated you. You egged me on."

"I'm sorry."

"I'm not." Sara rested her head against his chest. "Not sorry for any of it, understand? My choice, not your fault."

"You chose to be cursed?" Dean asked softly, gently teasing. He wasn't touching the second part of that comment, not now, not ever.

"Born cursed-" Sara broke off with a hiss of pain and Dean winced in empathy. "Chose to go along with it. That's the important bit."

"Hm?"

"Gotta be willing, Dean. Makes it mean more. Demons and witches, they got it all wrong. Taking by force isn't the same as being given. You find someone willing, it only takes a cupful of blood to do the same as draining them dry."

She didn't know about the killing the bloodstone option. Dean had decided not to tell her at the same moment he'd decided it wasn't an option; why waste her hope on options which weren't options at all? But Dean was realising what a serious mistake he had made. Sara just might be onto something there.

He was jolted out of his thoughts when Sara's phone rang. Unwrapping one arm from around her, Dean snagged the phone and answered.

It was Bobby. "Dean, I'm sorry. There's nothing."

Those words had the potential to destroy him, so Dean blocked them out. "Bobby, Sara had an idea."

"I did?" she murmured.

"What if the bloodstone gave her blood willingly? Would that be enough, I mean, to save Sara without having to kill the bloodstone?"

There was a long pause before Bobby replied and Dean struggled between impatience and gratefulness that the idea hadn't been rejected outright.

"It might," the older Hunter said finally. "Dean, you realise you're completely off the map with this, right?"

"Best place to be. How would I get something like that to work?"

"Best bet would be to get Sara to drink the blood. If spilling it by force would break the spell, maybe her getting it in her system would have the same effect if it was given freely." There was another pause. "Good luck."

When the phone went dead, Dean let it drop absently. "Sara? You willing to try this? We've still got two hours. I can easily be back before that."

She didn't reply, just hid her face and held on a little tighter. Dean couldn't blame her. Pain was bad enough, pain and loneliness and fear all together was more than even he could deal with willingly. There was a reason the two of them had gravitated towards the other, after all. They both hated to be alone.

"Sara, please." He wouldn't go without her permission. He couldn't. "You know you don't want to die."

"Don't want to die like a Lucian," she corrected. "Get back in time, you hear me?"

"I promise."

He would never understand why, but that was nearly always enough for Sara. With a whimper of pain or two, she shifted herself away from Dean. He paused just long enough to grab his jacket and pistol before leaving, not quite daring to look back.

And when the door shut behind him, Sara curled a little tighter in on herself and started to sob.

xxxnot quite daring to look back k back

The drive back to Owen Road and the Grenfell home was uneventful, except for the tension humming in Dean's arms and shoulders which made gripping the steering-wheel just a little uncomfortable. Not that that would've stopped him, no way. Nothing was going to stop him, although he was careful with his driving just so no cop would attempt to. That would just be kinda irritating.

He'd told Bobby that being off the map was the best place to be, and Hunters did have to be willing to go with their instincts every now and again, but this was just about as far off the map as he'd ever got. But when he pulled the Impala up outside the right house, things changed a little. Dean had decent hunting instincts, one of the many reasons he was still alive, and something felt very wrong. Of course, occasionally his instincts did screw up – yep, no guilt there – but as Dean hadn't been unarmed since arriving in this stinking town, his feelings really didn't change anything that seriously. Except for one little thing. Instead of his original plan, just to knock on the door and ask Maria simply and bluntly for some of her blood to save Sara, he slipped around the back of the house.

The back door wasn't even locked and Dean let himself in quietly, gun ready in his hands, moving softly through the kitchen. His instincts, his lousy, ineffective instincts were screaming at him and for all their inaccuracy, he couldn't ignore that. Which turned out to be a good thing when he spotted the smear of blood on the basement door and the disarray in the hall, clear remnants of some sort of scuffle.

Finally, way, way too late, Dean remembered that he had left Maria alone with a trashed workroom for her murderous sister to come home to. Why the hell the girl hadn't done the decent thing and split, he had no idea, but then if that had ever been an option, she wouldn't have moved with Cecilia to River Mill in the first place.

Edging closer to the basement door, Dean listened for a moment. He had no qualms about either killing Cecelia or saving Maria, but if he got himself killed, Sara would be pissed. And also dead, but he wasn't going to think about that.

"...meant to be simple, right? All you had to do was what I told you to do and I told you not to come down here..."

Shuffle, something being hit, a whimper.

That was quite enough for Dean, who eased the door open a little further and headed down the stairs. He couldn't remember if any of the steps creaked, but he made to the bottom without Cecilia realising he was there.

He'd expected... something, he wasn't sure exactly what, to show just what an evil bitch Cecilia Grenfell was. Yeah, sure, the lady had an air of arrogance and insanity about her, and Dean had long stopped expecting evil to look, well, evil. This wasn't the first time he'd come across an evil that was more or less human or that had willing chosen to become worse than some of the things he hunted either, but...

Yeah, he really had nothing to follow that up with, so instead he stepped forward, raised his gun and said, "Get the hell away from her."

Cecelia turned away from Maria, who had one hell of a bruise across her face, and gave Dean a cruel smile. "You must be the Hunter. Strange. You're meant to dying right about now."

"Curse didn't take, you little bitch," Dean snapped.

"But where's your little friend? Oh, that's right. The curse is taking _her_, even as we speak." Another smile. "It's only going to get worse for her, you know. When her time is up, she won't even remember what peace is. How much time is there left? Ninety minutes? She won't even remember who you are when you get back, do you understand that?"

The muscles in Dean's jaw twitched, but Cecelia was still right next to her sister with one nasty looking knife in her hand. "Get away from Maria."

"Sure you want me to?"

"Get away!"

"Come on, Hunter, you know it, same as me." She held up the knife, pulled her sister close, ready to slit Maria's throat. "Drain her dry, the redhead lives. All you have to do is let me-"

She fell to the floor, blood and brains splattering the walls, and Dean lowered the gun.

Maria was shaking and, Dean was fairly sure, about to start sobbing, but that was better than the way she'd looked a moment before, with her sister holding a knife to her throat and looking like she honestly expected to die. Expected Dean not to save her.

Which was understandable; she barely knew Dean, but as Dean had for horrible moment considered _not _pulling the trigger in time, he was irrationally irritated by the whole thing.

"Told you I'd stop her," he said finally, just for something to say.

"Yeah. You did," Maria replied and stepped away from her sister, one hand rubbing her throat. "Why?"

"You complaining?"

"I die, your friend lives. I wouldn't have blamed you-"

"She would've." Dean glanced at his watch. Half an hour since he'd left Sara. "And you don't need to die to save Sara. You willing to help me?"

Maria was, it turned out, even if she did raise her eyebrows slightly when he explained exactly what was required. But she still took the knife willingly and sliced her palm, right across the beta, the Bloodstone mark, letting the blood drip into an empty jam-jar she'd found in the kitchen. Waved off Dean's stammered apologies, told him to get the hell out of there.

Neither of them mentioned the cops, but Dean left the gun for her on the kitchen table. Maria had a bruised face, cut hand and a sister who could be linked to at least two murders. No one would blame her for shooting Cecelia 'in self defence'. If she had enough brains – and Dean thought she did – to put her fingerprints on the weapon, he'd be home free.

If this cure worked.

And that was a pretty damn big _if, _Dean had to admit. But while you could prepare for a hunt until kingdom come and you could spar until there wasn't an inch of you that didn't ache and you could research until your eyes refused to uncross, there was always the uncertainty. The frozen moment when the monster was coming at you and you had to just pray that the silver bullets worked, that you had the right incantation, that your partner didn't screw up.

That Dean didn't screw up again.

The ride back to the motel was one he'd never like to repeat, thank you very much, but at last he was there, fumbling with the room key until he could get the door open and _fix this. _That's what he did, after all. Big damn hero, here to save the fricking day.

He didn't feel like much of a hero though, not when he saw Sara. Not when he pulled her close again just to have her damn-near scream in pain and fight back, however weakly.

_"She won't even remember who you are when you get back, do you understand that?" _

Fucking Cecelia, fucking curse, fucking cure that made him hold Sara still with one arm and force-feed her human blood because it's the only thing that might just save her life and the only time Dean could ever manage to hurt someone he cared- someone he gave a damn about was when it would help them and then he was too good at it for his own peace of mind. But finally Sara swallowed the blood, coughing and choking, and Dean dropped the empty jar.

"See? Wasn't so bad, was it?" he said, refusing to let her go, keeping her close. "You'll be fine. You're gonna be fine."

Sara stopped fighting him, one hand still gripping his wrist, but not in desperation anymore, and Dean let his chin rest on top of her head and _breathed. _

At least until she screamed.

xxx  
The fianl chapter will be up on Thursday, I hope. Reviews are hugely appreciated...


	4. Chapter 4

Fucking Cecelia, fucking curse, fucking cure that made him hold Sara still with one arm and force-feed her human blood because it's the only thing that might just save her life and the only time Dean could ever manage to hurt someone he cared- someone he gave a damn about was when it would help them and then he was too good at it for his own peace of mind. But finally Sara swallowed the blood, coughing and choking, and Dean dropped the empty jar.

"See? Wasn't so bad, was it?" he said, refusing to let her go, keeping her close. "You'll be fine. You're gonna be fine."

Sara stopped fighting him, one hand still gripping his wrist, but not in desperation anymore, and Dean let his chin rest on top of her head and breathed.

At least until she screamed.

It was just once, small and cut off sharply when Sara clamped her lips together again. But her grip changed from relaxed to bone-crushing, bruising, and she didn't let go again.

And that was the end of it, Dean realised. If the blood hadn't worked, he couldn't do anything else. Couldn't leave Sara again, not with less than a hour left before she died, not with the only way to save being to blow out the brains of an innocent woman who'd done everything she could to help them. So he did all he could. He stayed, praying that Sara knew it was him there, that he'd come back, that she wasn't alone. He stayed and watched the clock on the table slowly tick down the last minutes of Sara's life.

When Sara slumped back against him, Dean nearly lost it.

But through the red haze, through the anger that was his way of dealing with just about everything, part of him registered that she was breathing, dragging in oxygen in that pained way that wasn't really pain, just the after-effects. He hoped.

The clock read 3:07.

Dean stomped down on that hope before it could really get started. But as Sara's breathing slowed to sleep and the minutes ticked by, he couldn't help it. The curse hadn't let Sara escape to unconsciousness before and if it was still in effect, she wouldn't be asleep right now. Even the blood from her back had stopped running, starting to clot against her shirt and his.

He shifted slightly, half-planning to find clean shirts for them both, to put Sara to bed, but the movement jerked Sara awake and her hand clutched at his shirt again, so he stilled.

"S'okay, Sara. I'm not going anywhere."

"Don't wanna die alone," she murmured, completely out of it.

"You won't. You won't."

Not now, not ever.

xxx

Normally, when someone was killed during a hunt, the first thing to do was to get the hell out of Dodge. But when Dean ventured out of the motel room that evening to find something to eat, the motel owner couldn't stop talking about the latest scandal. The killing of Cecilia Grenfell by her distraught, abused sister and the ongoing police investigation. And as that investigation was entirely into the deaths of Kathleen Grenfell and Lucy Miles, and no one had yet mentioned either a black muscle car or an unknown young man, Dean figured they were okay to stay for at least another night.

So he got some food to go from the nearby diner, not much caring what it actually was because the adrenaline rush was completely over and he was fricking starving, and hurried back to the motel room. Sara was still asleep when he opened the door, and he hoped she'd stay that way for a while. She certainly hadn't stirred when he'd cleaned the blood off her and settled her in his bed. Being cursed took a hell of a lot out of you, apparently.

Dean felt sorely tempted to just collapse the moment he finished his sandwich, but there was blood all over the motel room. There wasn't any point drawing unnecessary attention to himself and leaving behind a room which looked like it had belonged to a mass murderer would certainly attract someone's attention. The bed Sara had slept in was, as far as Dean could tell, unsalvageable, but he washed the blood off the wall and shifted a small table to hide the stain on the carpet. The two blood-stained shirts would be tossed. And, if he had his way, this whole part of NYS would be blacked out of every map he owned and that would be the end of it.

_Ding dong, the witch is dead... _

Yeah, Dean badly needed sleep. But before he collapsed, he set up the laptop in order to send an email off to Maxwell. He already called Bobby with the good news, but Dean had never had much to do with the Canadian tracker. He knew that Maxwell had helped Sara's mother as well as Sara herself, but that was about it. This, though, this earned the man a favour, and Dean had no problem owing people who deserved it. When he opened up his email account, though, he already had a message from Maxwell.

_Just keep her alive, kid. You don't owe me any more than that. _

"Damn psychics," Dean muttered, shaking his head, and shut the laptop again.

Then, with everything that had to be done thoroughly done, he kicked his shoes off and stretched out on the bed next to Sara.

Another hunt over, another demon dead.

Everything was pretty much okay in the world.

xxx  
Or so he'd thought.

The next day, Dean wasn't so sure anymore. Sara had woken up that morning, sore but basically alright, and had listened when Dean explained what had happened before brushing off his, are you okay, with a vague nod and a can we just get out of here, please.

The last time she'd said please, she'd been dying, and even if that hadn't been the case, Dean would've said yes. As Sara had packed up, he'd gone to motel owner and fed her some BS story about Sara being in an accident a few days back and busting open her stitches the night before, real sorry, ma'am, do allow me to pay for the mess. Not his most original cover story, but better than being accused of... whatever the police would think.

Normally his excuses made Sara either smile or roll her eyes, depending, when he retold them to her but she had just nodded vaguely again and gone back to staring out of the window as Dean had started up the Impala and put River Mill firmly in the rear-view mirror.

And now, almost a hundred miles later, she still hadn't said anything. Which wasn't so unusual, granted. Sara had nearly died and had spent hours in pain and, for some of that, completely alone. Neither of them were much for introspection, but near-misses always made Dean's train of though wander into generally ignored topics. You know, meaning of life, morality, all that crap that didn't make a blind bit of difference on most days.

"Dean, quit it," Sara said, jolting him out of his thoughts. "You're meant to keep your eyes on the road, you know."

"I can multitask."

"Yeah, you can drive and convert oxygen into CO2 at the same time, but that's about it, Deanie-freak."

Okay, so she was now looking at him and insulting him. That was a definite improvement.

"Look, Sara, you should know... I mean, it's okay for you to... not be okay with this. Near-death experience, bound to shake anyone up a little bit. And you don't have to tell me a single thing, but..."

"Look, Hunters get hurt, Dean, that's what happens to them. And when they're not getting hurt, they're getting killed. I knew that before I started hunting. That's not my problem here."

"Then what is?"

"You saved me."

Dean hesitated, thoroughly confused, and Sara hastened to explain.

"First time I was told what an honour it was to die for my work, I wasn't even in full-time education yet. I didn't even know what my work was, or what death was, not really. But the idea of dying young and in pain... I grew up with that. All I was ever taught to expect. And, no, you can't go and resurrect my grandmother and make her suffer for that, Dean. It's a fair appraisal of our situation."

"No, it's not."

"What, you're really planning for your retirement? Play the numbers. We're both dead before we hit thirty."

"Yeah, but that's eight years away for you. Just cause you're gonna die someday doesn't mean it's gotta be today."

"It's not like I want to die, for Christ's sake!"

"Then what, Sara? What the hell is the problem with me saving you?"

And it came out way harsher than he intended and Sara just huffed slightly before going back to staring out of the window. Conversation over. Dean, for his part, flicked the radio on and let his anger fizzle out over another fifty miles or so. And then, once his irritation had faded, his brain started ticking again.

"Don't want to die like a Lucian." That was what Sara had said. And Dean, for all of five years of friendship and three months of co-habitation, still wasn't entirely sure what Sara meant when she talked about being or doing anything like a Lucian. For Dean, being a Winchester was a point of pride and part of him, his firm connection to the two people who mattered to him more than anything. But for Sara, as far as Dean could tell, being a Lucian was part duty, part punishment and normally resulted in more hurt than just being a Hunter. Being a Winchester made Dean part of a very small group, but a group nonetheless. Being a Lucian seemed to make Sara a group of one. 

"Okay," he said finally, keeping his eyes on the road this time. "You covered untimely death when you were four. How old were you when you went over allies and team-members?"

"One week off my seventeenth birthday," came the soft reply.

Dean blinked. That would've been the first hunt they ever went on together, when

John and Amelia had gone missing and the younger generation had broken ranks to get them both back in one piece. Shit.

"You know many Hunters before then?"

"Yeah. Bobby, Pastor Jim, the Atwoods, hell, even John. Why?"

And there was no real way for Dean to answer that question. Because while every single Hunter Sara had ever met could and sometimes did team up with another, Sara didn't think of herself as a Hunter. She was, as far as she was concerned, an exorcist. And there had only been one exorcist, one who only worked with others when there was no other choice and constantly told Sara that she was destined to be alone.

The problem wasn't that Dean had saved Sara. The problem was that Sara had been saved at all.

Dean sucked with words, he knew that. He'd always counted actions over words and always would. And while he could lie, flatter, flirt or ramble with the best of them, when it came to saying the right thing, he was hardly reliable. Especially when the situation was as fucked up as this one.

But Sara wasn't alone. That had to count for something, right? She'd agreed to hunt with Dean. And Dean had saved her life. Not that Sara was in any way convinced that she didn't have to be alone.

But then, it wasn't like Dean had anywhere else to be.

xxx

There are some rules that just aren't changeable. Holy water hurts demons, salt keeps away ghosts, Hunters are short-lived creatures. Curses can't be broken.

Bobby still couldn't quite believe it. He'd always known that Dean was good at his job, hell, every Hunter from Canada to Mexico knew the Winchesters were a capable bunch, but not even John would've been able to break a Bloodstone Curse. Not that Bobby was complaining, far from it. Sara was a good kid and sure as hell didn't deserve that sort of death, but still. Dean had done the impossible.

It would be slightly better if Dean would acknowledge what he'd done, that was for sure. He was the first Hunter on record to break the Bloodstone Curse, possibly the first Hunter ever. But Dean didn't even seem to care that much. Bobby could get that, though. Sara was alive, so who cared why?

But Bobby did care. You didn't get to be where he was without paying attention to the little details. While the Bloodstone giving her blood voluntarily hadn't stopped the curse completely, it had stopped the last stage: death. And that was quite good enough, after all. A little pain was easy to deal with compared to dying. But it didn't make any sense. The difference between giving willingly and being coerced was nothing more than a romantic one, impractical in their fight. At least, that was what Bobby had always believed, where magic was concerned at any rate.

Not where Hunters were concerned, though. You had to want to hunt if you were going to survive. That's why Bobby had been relieved when he'd heard of Sam's Winchester's departure to Stanford. Kid didn't want to be here, so he shouldn't be here, simple as that. Not like Dean, who had been born for this life. Even if his father hadn't gone on his crusade and dragged Dean along for the ride, Bobby wouldn't have been surprised if Dean had still ended up a Hunter. The kid had a damn-near unique flair for this work, not to mention luck to rival the devil's. Take this case, for instance. If Dean hadn't gestured obscenely at the witch, the curse would've taken him as well. Not that Dean knew that the middle finger was reported to ward off the Evil Eye. Kid was just being himself.

And if Dean being Dean was enough to break a curse and defeat a powerful witch, well, Bobby sure as hell wasn't complaining.

xxx  
Sorry this chapter is later than expected. My computer has decided this would be a good time to die and took _Bloodstone_ with it. This final chapter is therefore dedicated to Luce, my beta, who found this copy in her email account and was kind enough to send it to me. Until my computer is actually working again, I can't say when the next story will be up, but I am fully intending to continue. Thanks for all reviews.


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